Police marksman cleared of shooting murder of Chris Kaba

Martyn Blake, 40, stood trial at the Old Bailey after shooting the 24-year-old through the front windscreen of an Audi Q8 in Streatham, south-east London, on September 5 2022.

The jury deliberated for some three hours on Monday to clear Mr Blake who appeared to be briefly overcome with emotion as the verdict was returned.

He breathed out, puffed his cheeks and turned away in an apparent show of relief.

The family of Mr Kaba, who sat in the well of the court, sat in stony silence and made no immediate reaction.

One relative could be seen rocking backwards and forwards as the verdict was given, and the group walked away from the courtroom in the Old Bailey in silence, accompanied by their police family liaison officer.

The trial heard how the Audi had been used as a getaway vehicle in a shooting the previous evening, and was hemmed in by police cars in Kirkstall Gardens after an officer recognised its registration number.

Mr Kaba drove backwards and forwards trying to ram his way free, which Mr Blake told jurors made him believe one of his colleagues was about to die, and so he opened fire to stop the car.

A fellow firearms officer known as DS87 said he would have taken a shot if Mr Blake had not, and another identified by the cypher E156 said he was “fractions of a second” away from doing the same.

Another, NX109, got the finger of his glove caught in the Audi’s door handle and just managed to wrench it free as it moved forward, telling the jury he thought he would be dragged between it and a Tesla parked nearby.

Prosecutors argued that Mr Blake had misjudged the risk, exaggerated the threat to his colleagues in statements following the shooting, and had aimed at Mr Kaba’s head, all of which he denied.

In his defence, jurors heard a series of glowing testimonials from colleagues and senior officers.

Defence barrister Patrick Gibbs KC said Mr Blake was no “RoboCop” with the “nanosecond” reactions of a computer.

He told jurors: “He is not a robot, he is a human being with a human brain who did this to the best of his ability.”

Police watchdog the Independent Office for Police Conduct will now consider whether Mr Blake should face a disciplinary hearing.

Questions have already been raised about how firearms officers are held to account in fatal shootings, with dozens of Mr Blake’s colleagues downing tools when he was first charged with murder.

Police bosses raised concerns that officers would no longer be willing to volunteer to take on firearms training due to the levels of scrutiny that they could face if they had to take a fatal shot.

Mr Blake had never fired a gun at a human being, or seen a gun fired at a human being, before the night Mr Kaba died.

Jurors heard that those close to Mr Blake had been hesitant about him becoming a police marksman but that he felt it was “the best job” in the Metropolitan Police.

The jury of nine men and three women had asked to make a statement to the court alongside their verdict, but permission was denied by Mr Justice Goss.

After the verdict, Frank Ferguson, head of the CPS Special Crime and Counter Terrorism Division, said the decision to prosecute was made “after an in-depth consideration of all the available evidence”.

He said: “We recognise that firearms officers operate under enormous pressure, but it is our responsibility to put cases before a jury that meet our test for prosecution, and we are satisfied that test was met in this case.

“It is therefore right that the case was put before the jury for them to scrutinise and to decide.

“They have carefully considered each piece of evidence, including video and Martyn Blake’s own account.”

Official figures show that in England and Wales in the year to March 2023 there were 18,395 police firearms operations.

Police weapons were deliberately fired at 10 of these incidents, resulting in three fatalities.